


When the soul wants

by OhAine



Series: Memoirs of a Pathologist [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Fluffy Angst, Light Angst, One Shot, Porn With Plot, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlolly - Freeform, Smut, mollock, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 11:24:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6702805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhAine/pseuds/OhAine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Would you like to kiss me?” she asks, her voice soft and seductive. </p>
<p>His jaw tenses, and there’s a dry clicking noise in his throat when he swallows, “Yes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My one year anniversary on AO3 fic!</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the soul wants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nydamascus97](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nydamascus97/gifts).



> This is my ‘Happy first fic anniversary’ gift to myself.
> 
> It was a year ago this week that I posted my first ever story, ‘Saving for a rainy day’, which was supported by so many lovely people here on AO3. It truly meant the world to me (and still does) that people read and cheered me on. 
> 
> Lots of writers that I’m a fan of have been gracious enough to comment on that fic, but I want to mention one in particular: MizJoely. From what I can see, the woman makes it her business to make new writers aboard our ship feel welcome, she encourages and supports them – she did that for me too. Miz, if you’re reading, I thank you from the bottom of my heart: that *squee* moment when your comment appeared will stay with me always.
> 
> Okay, back to business. This fic is gifted to the first ever person to ever comment on any of my stories, and was written for a prompt she gave in a comment on ‘(All things) By a law divine’. She asked for married Sherlolly fantasy role playing an illicit affair. This fic is kinda like some of those things. A bit. Sort of.
> 
>    
> All hail the wisdom and benevolence of Kiki, arbiter of good taste, fixer of plot defects, restorer of confidence and rebuilder of poorly constructed sentences. Or, in other words, beta’d by the wonderful MaybeItsJustMyType. 
> 
> Trigger warning! Mentions of infidelity.
> 
> This is a stand alone fic, not in the same timeline as the rest of the series.
> 
> I own nothing…

* * *

 

 

“I see one of our members has caught your eye, Mr Scott. Would you like me to make an introduction?”

 

For a moment Sherlock almost doesn’t hear, lost in his own thoughts, distracted by the fey and lovely creature caught in his crosshairs. He’d seen her when he first entered the room: petite, with slender, shapely legs, shoulder length tousled auburn hair, dark expressive eyes that twinkled with mischief and a graceful neck that drew his eyes down toward her perfect breasts.

 

Sitting at the bar, she sips from a crystal champagne coupe, her short dress rising to reveal an expanse of supple thigh when she crosses her legs. Doing nothing to avert her eyes from his stare, she responds with a lingering, speculative gaze of her own. There’s a flicker of something untamed and wild in those dark, sultry pools, something that answers _Yes_ and _Now_ to a question he has yet to ask. The unspoken communication stirs something deep within him, a _connection_. He's both fascinated and devastated by her all at once.

 

_Interesting_.

 

His voice unexpectedly low and husky when he enquires, “Who is she?”

 

Marcus Wickham, the unpleasant and distasteful little man who runs ‘Discreet Introductions’ and who is tonight’s host for the select cocktail reception held monthly at a secluded country hotel reserved exclusively for the dating service’s members, answers without needing to thumb through his well-worn note book crammed with the names of his illustrious clientele, “Mrs Maggie Jones, a new member, like you, this is her first _soirée_.”

 

“Married,” Sherlock whispers under his breath, his lips curving into a crooked smile.

 

“I can assure you Mr Scott, marital ties do not trouble our members,” Wickham glances at the wedding ring that adorns Sherlock’s left hand. Smiling lasciviously he winks, “that little goer has already reserved a bedroom upstairs.”

 

Bile rises in his stomach, and he wants to punch the vile, repulsive rat for his assessment of the single most fascinating woman he’s ever laid eyes on, but his smile never falters. Tonight there are other…things he must consider first. Teaching the bastard manners will have to wait.

 

“Then by all means,” Sherlock gestures for Wickham to lead the way, “introduce me.”

 

* * *

 

 

Within half a glass of being introduced to William Scott, Molly has invited him to join her in her room.

 

Locking the door, she walks toward the gorgeous man now sitting on her bed. Her head swims pleasantly from champagne and the waves of arousal that emanate from him. Heat burning, sudden and urgent: it twists and coils at the apex of her thighs begging for completion, when she realises that his sparkling eyes, sea green in the dimly lit room, are undressing her, dragging slowly over her breasts then lower, imagining her nude form, watching her with a searing intensity. She tears her gaze away from the perfect contours of his sensual mouth to see his body beginning to display the base response to his thoughts.

 

The need for release radiates from him, all the air in the room is charged with it. Electricity crackles between them and makes her dizzy with want. Anticipation of what’s to come makes her body burn.

 

And _, God_ , how arousal suits him. His high cheekbones, dappled pink and flushed with excitement, a tumble of raven curls clinging to the barest hint of beaded perspiration at his hairline. He looks ethereal, other worldly, more beautiful than any man should ever be. His eyes are mesmerising, colours shifting constantly. His smell is masculine and heady. Molly wonders if when she kisses him he’ll taste of the expensive whiskey he’s been drinking – she knows she won’t wait much longer to find out, because, _oh_ , how that plush mouth just begs to be taken.

 

“Would you like to kiss me?” she asks, her voice soft and seductive.

 

His jaw tenses, and there’s a dry clicking noise in his throat when he swallows, “Yes.”

 

Hiking her dress up, she climbs into his lap, and rests a knee either side of his hips. Her pert backside sits on his thighs, her lips hovering just millimetres away from his. Her fingers tangle in the curls at the nape of his neck to pull his head back. Before she knows what she’s doing she’s kissing him: the first touch of their lips is like the shock of being plunged into icy waters, her nipples harden and she finds it hard to breathe.

 

Sherlock angles his head toward her and swallows the sounds she tries to make. Those first kisses are deep and drawn out: barely there brushes of eager lips become a long, slow slide of mouth over mouth that in time is punctuated by firm flicks of their tongues as it becomes heated. Sucking hard on his bottom lip, she hears him whimper – a real, honest to God _whimper_. He kisses like a man starved of touch, his tongue invading, exploring everywhere: plump and luscious lips slide against her own, stealing the breath from her lungs.

 

He’s responsive to her every touch, Molly feels the strain and push of his erection as he lifts his hips to meet hers. Her mind conjures images of pushing him back onto the bed, riding the hard cock that’s now pressing into her thigh until they both howl with pleasure. She wants to open her legs for him, be split in two. Reluctantly she breaks the kiss, desperate to make this more than just a quick fuck in an overpriced hotel.

 

When she pulls away he gasps, his ocean coloured eyes turning wild and stormy as they linger on her swollen lips. Breathing heavily, aroused, he fondles her nipple through her dress, scratches it with his nails and asks with his mouth and nose on her throat, “Doesn’t your husband object to other men playing with his toys?”

 

Molly thinks the rich baritone that resonates in his broad chest could well be enough to make her come.

 

She smiles, bites her bottom lip, “Quite the contrary, he loves to claim me after one of my little dalliances. He’ll fuck me hard enough that I won’t ever again forget I’m his. Well,” she grins, “until the next time.” Tilting his head back, she rubs her thumb along the barely parted seam of his lips, “And what about you, _William_ ,” punctuating her words with a hard roll of her hips against the impressive length visible through the fabric of his trousers, “what’s your story?”

 

Bending her head, Molly’s tongue licks across the heartbeat that’s hammering in his beautiful, pale throat. She’s gratified to hear him pant and bite back a lurid moan when her lips trace the line of his jaw then lower to lick away the salty dew that has gathered in his suprasternal notch.

 

“Oh, the usual,” with one hand she twists her fingers into his hair, manicured nails scratching lightly across his scalp, with the other she unbuttons his shirt, revealing a broad muscular chest, skin like the finest marble and flat dusky pink nipples that are just beginning to harden. The rest of his response is a distracted whisper, “she doesn’t understand me.”

 

“Is that so?” Pushing his shirt from his shoulders, Molly runs her smooth palms down his back, muscles fluttering under her touch. Encouraged by the shivered exhale of his breath, she touches a finger to his cheek, lets it trail downward to his lips, “Well, baby boy, I understand you.”

 

Reaching between their bodies, she drags a palm over his erection, hears his breathing grow heavy, laboured, hears him hold his breath when, with precise and delicate fingers, she opens his trousers and wraps that same palm around him, hears him hiss and gasp as she strokes him.

 

Circling her thumb around the swollen and leaking head of his penis, her lips graze his ear. With a voice that’s breathy and excited she asks, “Is this what you came here for? A woman who understands you? One who wants to give you what you need?”

 

Sherlock groans something unintelligible. When she sucks and bites the salty-sweet skin on his neck, his eyelashes flutter shut, “No. I came here for you, just you. I- I- ”

 

The hands that have been holding her hips graze the sensitive skin behind her knees, then come to rest on her thighs. The pressured heat of his calloused finger tips is shockingly good as he glides them higher and higher under the hem of her dress: they toy with the lace edges of her knickers, while his thumbs presses against the damp silk that covers her clitoris. Of their own volition her hips jerk toward him, rocking into his touch.

 

She gasps and moans when his teeth gently bite down on her clothed nipple. It takes Molly a full ten seconds before she can control herself enough to say, “Lie back, I want to look at you.”

 

His compliance is immediate, the pale expanse of his skin is spread out before her on a canvas of white sheets, his dishevelled chocolate curls a halo around his head, his chest flushed rosy and lips parted. Molly’s eyes drift lower to finally see the every bit good as she expected crimson cock jutting out from a thatch of dark hair. Unseating herself from his thighs, she slides his trousers, shoes and socks down and off. Finally he’s laid bare before her.

 

As she stands at the foot of the bed, watching, Sherlock lets his arms fall on to the pillow above his head. The wanton beauty of his nudity reminds her of a painting of Endymion she once saw in a museum: from the structure of his bones to his lithe musculature, he is a work of art. Looking like a fallen angel when he smiles at her with inch closed eyes, and through the inky lashes that sweep shadows across his cheek, he’s so clearly flattered by her obvious admiration for his unclothed form. He preens under her lustful regard, unselfconscious, graceful, he stretches his already firm body into a taut line of wiry muscle, just for her admiration.

 

Something glorious - sinful and dark - speaks to her of the strange and repressed eroticism in the disparity of his fully nude body while she herself is still completely clothed. It’s thrilling and oddly powerful, but it doesn’t serve her purpose.

 

Looking down into the thin ring of shimmering iris that encircles his blown wide pupils, she slips out of her shoes and tugs her dress up and over her head, hands trembling with anticipation. When her palms ghost over her silk covered breasts he says in a voice that’s broken and rough, “Don’t. Please. I want to.”

 

Resting on her knees, she straddles his lap, presses her body firmly against his so that her aching core shifts into alignment with his engorged cock. Her body shivers under his touch as his fingertips caresses her abdomen on their journey toward her breasts. When he reaches their gentle swell, Sherlock rises up to place wet, open mouthed kisses on her neck, her collarbone. Grazing her breasts with the back of his fingers, he slips one under each bra strap, guiding them to fall from her shoulders. Caressing her back, the clasp is unfastened with a dexterous flick of his wrist.

 

First one bare breast, then the other is sucked into the velvet heat of his mouth, the flat of his tongue dragging over her nipple, his teeth grazing, teasing, coaxing a moan form her lips. Lust spikes and heat flares in all directions, it’s possible, she thinks, that she’s never been this wet for any man before.

 

Sensitive skin tingles where his hands roam: they’ve made their way inside her underwear now to cup her backside, his fingers idling along the cleft. It makes her breath hitch, and her body arches into his heated mouth. Demanding fingers rake into his hair, they tighten and pull, his responding rumbled groan feels decadently good against her breast.

 

“ _Fucking hell_ ,” she breathes and feels him smile against her skin, it’s echoed in the eyes that flick up to meet hers. There’s a piercing and insatiable lust in the way he looks at her: it’s the single most erotic thing she’s ever seen in her life.

 

“Take what you want,” she husks, knowing that it’s exactly what he’ll do.

 

In one deft, graceful motion, he eases her onto her back, sliding knickers that are damp with his pre come down the satin soft skin of her legs. He kneels between her wanting thighs, looming over her like a predatory animal. Sherlock plunges his hand between her legs, spreading them: slowly, he rubs the tip of his cock along her soaked channel, it parts her folds with firm, consistent pressure. When he unerringly finds her clitoris he circles it with the tip of his cock, an urgent rhythm building while she begs and pleads for more.

 

His body is a solid pleasing weight when he lies on top of her, cradled in her trembling thighs. The head of his penis is close to breaching her when she realises. “Condom,” she manages to say, and for a moment he looks surprised.

 

“I, um… _Shit_ ,” he screws his eyes shut, a traitorous and furious blush mottles his high cheekbones. Molly finds it unbearably sexy.

 

Shyly he tells her, “I don’t, ah, I don’t have one.”

 

“Not very good at this affair business, are you?” She laughs, tips her head toward the nightstand, “Good thing I am. Top drawer.”

 

Sherlock reaches for it, rolls it on almost without looking, then lies on top of her again, pinning her down with his long body, asserting his physical dominance over her. This time she allows it when his thick cock instinctively finds her slick cunt and penetrates her. Her blood pounds loudly in her ears and she barely hears him gasp, _‘God, so good’_. About half his length forces itself inside her with the first rut of his hips: he’s buried up to the root, seated deep inside with the second.

 

Molly curls a leg around his hip to get the angle _just right_ , and the sensation goes from good to fireworks. It’s not slow and gentle, his desire, but insistent and possessive from the very first stroke. It feels like she’s been branded as his when he bites her neck, sucks a livid mark there. When he circles and snaps his hips against her, she screams a string of profane obscenities.

 

“You like that,” his lips moving against her mouth, “you like it when a strange man follows you to your hotel room, sinks his cock into you and makes you scream.”

 

Her only response is a long, drawn out gasp as he hits her sweet spot over and over again. There’s a glorious hot slide of sweaty skin against skin, his chest brushes against her hard nipples, his pubic bone hits her clitoris every time he fucks into her. Molly squeezes her damp thighs around his hips, increasing the pressure against her slick sex, their mouths and skin kissing.

 

Thrusting up to meet the counterpoint of every deep invasion of her body, she feels the rough push and slide of his long, thick cock stroking the pulsing walls inside her. When his lips nip and suck at the sensitive skin where her neck meets her shoulder, Molly comes harder than she has ever in her entire life.

 

Her blunt fingernails biting into his shoulder, her toes curling as she ripples around him, she shudders in satisfaction: as her release washes over her she breathes his name, “ _Sherlock_.”

 

* * *

 

 

The sensation of the woman beneath clenching around him draws his own orgasm from his body, his hot come filling the sheath around his cock. Lying between the thighs that have fallen open for him, spent but still inside her, his brain is dulled by the tsunami of neurochemicals washing through it. Tangled in the sheets as she mouths over his neck and face, sated and loose limbed, he feels pleasantly as though he’s been mugged.

 

Rolling away, he ties off the condom, lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. Two things strike him at once: the first is that he’s done something unforgivable, the second is that he has to fix this. Blackmailer’s accomplice or not, he can’t let them have her. Not now, not after -

 

Cognitive function that was dull and slow just moments before is restored to an unimpaired state in an instant, his synapses beginning to fire again. In a flurry of Egyptian cotton he leaps from the bed and turns toward her, arm outstretched and pointing at the door, “You have to leave, get out.”

 

“Wha-?” The girl, _Maggie_ , is already sitting up a sheet defensively pulled up to her chin, eyes wide and startled.

 

“I. Said. _Leave_.” He reiterates urgently, fingers running furiously through his hair.

 

Molly, her eyes shimmering, her face pale, scrambles out of bed and searches for her underwear. Her hands shake as she struggles with the clasp on her bra, “But this is my room - ”

 

“ - _QUICKLY_ ,” he bellows, and that just slows her trembling hands even more.

 

“Look, I don’t expect anything more. I know this is just a one night thing, just a - ” there’s a crack in her voice, her bottom lip wobbles.

 

“You don’t understand,” searching for Lestrade’s number in his mobile, he screams “ _Damn it_ ,” when he gets a busy tone. “You – _We_ need to get out of here. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

 

“Well,” her voice hitches on a sob, “that makes two of us.”

 

“No. Not…this,” he waves a hand impatiently between them, “Not - ”

 

Then he realises. Something isn’t right, something about what she said a few moments ago, calling his name when she -

_Shit_.

 

“What did you just say?”

 

“I- I didn’t - ” she stammers.

 

“Yes, yes you did,” he looms over her, glaring with narrowed eyes, “You said ‘ _Sherlock’_ , didn’t you?”

 

“Well, I can keep calling you William if that’s what you’d like, but I thought - ”

 

“You know my name?”

 

“Of course I do,” she scrunches her nose, shakes her head, confused, “Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective with the Met.”

 

And then it hits him: he’s seen that adorable little nose, those expressive dark eyes filled with longing somewhere before. “Molly Hooper,” he mumbles, his shoulders sinking, his chest deflating, “the new morgue attendant.”

 

“Specialist registrar,” Molly corrects him, indignant at the slight - positively seething at it in fact.

_“Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid…”_ pacing, a sheet wrapped around his cooling body. With one hand he grabs his clothes, with the other he pulls Maggie – _Molly_ – toward the bedroom door.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

There’s a sharp intake of breath: Sherlock, about to explain, never gets the chance.

 

What stops him is Greg Lestrade kicking in the hotel room door, pinning Molly to the ground, handcuffing her as he says, “Maggie Jones, I’m arresting you on suspicion of extortion. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention now anything you later rely on in court…”

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock’s heart flutters in his chest as he watches Molly sit alone on the green near her flat, legs curled beneath her, a heavy tome resting on her knee. Wearing jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, she’s even more breathtakingly lovely than she was the night before: he was certain that couldn’t have been possible.

 

It’s a beautiful spring day, the smell of freshly cut grass lingers in the air, and the warm, gentle breeze catches strands of her short auburn hair that have come loose from their pins. When she tucks one wayward lock behind her ear with fine fingers, she grazes her neck and absently idles over the mark he left there during their congress.

 

Something thick catches in his throat as he remembers that her skin felt like honey on his tongue.

 

It’s not that he gets it wrong often, but when he does, he gets it _spectacularly_ wrong. Molly had stormed off from the hotel when Lestrade, apologetic and fumbling upon hearing Sherlock’s confessed mistake, had immediately released her. The D.I. _and_ Stamford had both refused to give him her address and it’s taken him all night to convince Mycroft to help. So desperate was he to find her that he can’t bring himself to care about how _Brother_ _Dear_ will crow and sermonise over the sentimentality of it all.

 

Sherlock’s only satisfaction in the whole affair, thus far, is that he _did_ manage to punch Wickham before Lestrade led the blackmailer away.

 

Approaching her, he’s overwhelmed by images of their union: her soft breast beneath his hand, her passionate lips on his own, her arms encircling his shoulders making him feel more cared for, more wanted, more himself than any other lover had before.

 

The memory of her soft sighs, have played over and over in his head like the notes of a waltz he has yet to write, the memory of her gentle kisses have burned scars on his skin where her lips touched him.

 

The memory of her tears will torment him forever too.

 

He knows he hasn’t the right to expect anything when he stands above her and extends his takeaway-cup-encased peace offering, but he knows he has to try. There is a visceral knowledge that if he says nothing, does nothing, he’ll regret the loss of her for the rest of his life.

 

“Tea?”

 

She stiffens when she hears his voice, but refuses to look up from the page she’s reading to see him give her his best boyish smile, “No thank you.”

 

“I can assure you it’s eyeball free.” It’s an attempt at levity, one that’s poorly done – not least of all because she has no way of knowing what he means.

 

Shoving the sunglasses that have marked the bridge of her nose into her hair, Molly looks up, her eyes still red rimmed and darkly shadowed, “Maybe I wasn’t clear, so let me try again,” she straightens her shoulders and raises her chin defiantly, “Piss. Off.”

 

When he takes off his Belstaff and spreads it out on the grass to sit next to her, she sighs and turns back to her book. Their knees and arms brush, and Molly pulls her tense limbs away.

 

At length he says softly, seriously, “I’m sorry for what happened last night.”

 

“ _Oh_?” Huffing a bitter and forced laugh she asks, “Which part? The part where you picked me up in a hotel bar and fucked me, or the part where you almost had me arrested for blackmail while I was dressed only _IN MY UNDERWEAR?!?!_ ” She screams the last part like bloody murder, and some of the other Londoners enjoying the sunny day turn to look.

 

“The woman - the one I’ve been trying to find - you fit her description, and when I ran background checks on the guest list it became obvious that Maggie Jones was an alias of some sort. So.” Sherlock says this as though it explains everything.

 

When it becomes demonstrably clear that Molly doesn’t share this view, he says, frustrated, “What in hell’s name were you doing there anyway?”

 

The question is a genuine one, because for all his deductive reasoning, he can’t quite figure out why a beautiful, unattached girl is pretending to be married and picking up strange men through a dating agency. “Is there such a dearth of potential sexual partners in London that you’ve taken to luring married men to your bed?”

 

“ _What_?! No! Of course not, I would never have done… _that_ , not with a married man. I couldn't. Never.” His heart breaks when he sees her shoulders slump, hears the embarrassment in her voice. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I just thought I – I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that I could just have a fling. That’s all.” She worries the frayed edge of her Uni sweatshirt, closes her eyes, then imparts softly, “I was engaged to a lovely man who wasn’t right for me, and when I tried to date again after things ended, well, they all just seemed wrong too,” Molly heaves out a shuddering breath, shakes her head, and he knows it hurts her deeply to acknowledge it. “Before last night it had been almost a year. And I just wanted to feel the weight of a man’s body against mine, to be kissed and held.” Turning to him, “Is that so bloody wrong?”

 

“But why lie? Surely…?” Sherlock’s words die away when he realises.

 

Molly grows even more still, “No one after Tom felt right. I just wanted a no strings shag, because I’m tired of hoping that every first date will be with _the one_ , only to deflate like a punctured tyre every single time when there’s nothing, no spark, no potential. Stupidly I thought that if I wore a ring, called myself ‘Mrs’, it would attract _single_ ,” she emphasises, “men who didn’t want anything more than that either, because honestly, I just can’t face the disappointment anymore. Meeting someone through an agency where they’d be vetted seemed safer than some random bloke in a pub. It’s taken me months to work up the courage to go along to one of those parties, and even then I wasn’t sure I could go through with going to bed with a stranger. Then I saw you there, and I knew who you were, that you weren’t married despite the wedding ring, and I thought,” here she shrugs her shoulders, her voice is thoughtful, sad, “I dunno, that you were playing that game too. That maybe you were lonely. Like me.”

 

When a heavy rivulet of salty tear rolls down her cheek, she scrubs it away with the heel of her hand. It’s left unsaid that she’s had…something for him since the very first time she saw him at Bart’s. Nevertheless, he’s deduced it while she speaks.

 

Her posture changes, and he takes the chance to incline his body toward hers. Again, their arms brush: this time she shivers but doesn’t recoil. Hands that are clasped in his lap flex and strain against the urge to reach out and hold her, but he knows he has yet to be forgiven.

 

“Anyway, you’re one to talk, _William_ , you can’t take the moral high ground. Sleeping with what you thought was a married woman for a case? Entrapment, isn’t it? That’s far worse than anything I did last night.”

 

“I knew you weren’t married,” his nose crinkles, “obviously.”

 

“Oh?” Her arched eyebrow a challenge.

 

“Your ring. Brand new. Loose. Cheap too, even though your clothes were expensive, had it really been your wedding band you could have afforded better. You played with it constantly, while we talked in the bar, but you weren’t nervous, not in the least. It just wasn’t comfortable because you’d never worn it before. There was no tan line where it shifted on your finger, yet you have freckles from where you’ve been sitting in the sun. Ergo, not married.”

 

There’s no satisfaction in the deduction, he can hear the hurt in her voice when she says, “You think that’s any better? Whether I was married or not, you were going to shag me then turn me over to the Met!”

 

“If you recall, I was trying to get you the hell out of there, _but you wouldn’t bloody leave!”_

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yes, _Oh_ ,” he says, just a shade too prickly. He clears his throat, and softer now starts again. “It’s not like I went there with the intention of sleeping with anyone,” raising the eyes that been had fixed on a spot on the ground to hers, “much less a suspect who’d been filming her liaisons with married men in order to allow Wickham to extort money from them. Though I’ve done nothing to earn it, you’ll have to trust me when I say that last night was out of character for me too.”

 

What he doesn’t say is that while it’s been a year for Molly, it’s been ten times that for him, and longer still since he’s felt desire even vaguely like this for another soul. Those base urges that led him so often to destruction in his youth, consummated with women who used and tricked him, had been hunted down and culled into extinction before Molly had reignited something deep within him that he was powerless to control.

 

Tentatively, he covers her hand with his own, and strangely it feels more intimate than anything they shared the night before. “But haven’t you ever just wanted someone Molly? Haven’t you ever just craved another’s touch? Looked at them, and known you just had to have them?” He sounds different to himself, he hears the unintentional sound of vast and immeasurable longing in his voice, and for the first time in his life he’s not ashamed of it.

 

She protests, “But, but you’d seen me before, you - ”

 

“I didn’t. Not really,” the admission fills him with shame and incredulity, because right now, right this second, he feels that some hither to unknown part of him would know her as his even if they had never met. The need to be with her is a physical - almost spiritual – imperative. “Not like that, not the way you were last night, confident and carefree. Do you know how beautiful you look that way?”

 

He’s never wanted those things before, not the way other men do, and yet holding her, kissing her are the only coherent thoughts his brain can manage to form. A moment passes, then, “Molly, even if you don’t want them, last night most definitely came with strings.” He knows he’s not wrong, he feels the spark, he sees the potential, and he _knows_ it’s exactly the same for her too. And though they’ve shared desire, what he truly wants is something infinitely more rare for him. The intensity of his feelings has caught him by surprise, yet they're all the more real because of it, “I don’t – I don’t do this…relationships, it's not my area. There's never been anyone that I thought I could do this with. Until now.”

 

Time stands still as he waits to hear his fate. If there are signals, he can’t read them.

 

“You’ve hurt me,” she breathes softly.

 

“I know.”

 

The hand beneath his turns, and Sherlock holds his breath when she entwines his fingers with her own, pulling their joined hands into her lap.

 

There’s a need to say something, _anything_ , to hold the ground she’s given him. “Please can’t we start again? Please Molly? Have dinner with me?”

 

The question hangs in the air, when at last Molly speaks it’s to say, “Is that a euphemism, Sherlock?”

 

“For- For what?” He blinks once, slow, surprised. Realising she’s teasing him, a warm rush of air fills his chest with elation.

 

“Like I said, it’s been a year.” Blushing now, her eyes, averted again, are cast low. She glances up at him through thick lashes, eyes sparkling, a smile she can’t quite suppress plays about her lips. Sherlock finds it hopelessly endearing.

 

“ _Oh_ ,” he breathes, his returning smile bright and brilliant.

 

“Although I do actually want to _just_ have dinner.” She grins, “This time.”

 

Immediately he knows he’ll never be able to deny this woman anything, because the deed is done, the die is cast, he’s already falling in love with her.

 

He tenderly places a kiss to the top of her head, “Dinner it is.”

 


End file.
